Director:Joon Ho Bong

Stars:Kang-ho Song, Hie-bong Byeon, Hae-il Park|
See full cast & crew

Storyline

The film revolves around Park Hee-bong, a man in his late 60s. He runs a
small snack bar on the banks of the Han River and lives with his two
sons, one daughter, and one granddaughter. The Parks seem to lead a
quite ordinary and peaceful life, but maybe they are a bit poorer than
the average Seoulite. Hee-bong's elder son Gang-du is an immature and
incompetent man in his 40s, whose wife left home long ago. Nam-il is the
youngest son, an unemployed grumbler, and daughter Nam-joo is an
archery medalist and member of the national team. One day, an
unidentified monster suddenly appears from the depths of the Han River
and spreads panic and death, and Gang-du's daughter Hyun-seo is carried
off by the monster and disappears. All of the family members are in a
great agony because they lost someone very dear to them. But when they
find out she is still alive, they resolve to save her.

The Host Reviews..

"The Host" is as
deceptive and intriguing as its title (there's currently a 6-page thread
in the discussion board and we still haven't figured it out). The movie
can be taken as a straightforward monster flick, a dark comedy, a
sentimental drama, or a rich socio-political allegory.

For the
sake of this review, let's approach it as more than an
action/comedy/horror flick, and let's assume it's a deeper allegory.
There's definitely a lot of symbolism, lots of cultural references and
outright satire for you to munch on. I think that's what makes this
seemingly-ordinary monster flick into a powerful film.

Right in
the first scene, the director sets the tone with a caricature of Western
(U.S.) muddling. Like the excellent Korean film "Welcome to Dongmakgol"
released a year earlier, this film is not exactly complimentary toward
America, so if that irritates you, you might want to skip this. But when
you consider all the 80s Hollywood flicks that painted Russia as a
villain, I guess it's fair enough that the USA should take its lumps.

(I
did want to add that the director takes a diplomatic approach, mocking
the American "establishment" while indirectly praising the American
individual. He does this by including an American tourist who's really
cool. So in other words, his criticisms are not one-sided.)

The
plot is two-dimensional but the symbolic implications are profound. The
story is about a monster that terrorizes the banks of the Han River and
grabs a young girl, prompting her bumbling family to lead a rescue
effort, with no help from the Korean authorities. Some say that the
monster represents Western imperialism. It could represent a figurative
"attack" on Korean culture, autonomy and sovereignty. Or it could even
be taken literally to represent environmental terrors caused by American
apathy.

Don't worry, the USA isn't the only target here. There
are some pretty good jabs at the Korean authorities too, insinuating (in
a way that's both entertaining and irritating) that the Korean
government is apathetic & hopeless. "So much for Korea's new
democracy," says one character at one point in the film. Some critics
point out interesting parallels & allusions to the 1980 Gwangju
Uprising (where the Korean Government botched the whole situation,
killing & wounding hundreds at a student protest). Everyone is fair
game in a dark satire like this. In that respect it reminded me of the
excellent Veerhoven scifi satires "Starship Troopers" and "Robocop".

Like
all good satires, there's a nice amount of comedy to remind us not to
take everything at face value. The bumbling family provides some great
laughs in the first half, and certain scenes in the hospital are
reminiscent of the sarcastic masterpiece "Brazil" with its merciless
mockery of all institutional powers. The scene where they're looking for
a virus in a guy's head is both riotously hilarious and profoundly
disturbing.

I did want to mention one thing in case you're
wondering. No, the audience isn't supposed to feel sympathy for the
monster, not like in "King Kong". I was actually surprised at that (in a
good way), because the director didn't stray from his message with any
gratuitous sentimentality. Normally I'm not a fan of killer animal
flicks (Jaws, etc) because I usually find myself siding with the animals
more readily than the humans. But this film managed to avoid all
sympathies, since the monster itself is a product of human idiocy (which
is explained in the first scene).

Well I've just thrown a bunch
of ideas at you, and I don't claim any of them to be absolute. But the
point is that this seemingly-ordinary horror flick is so much more. It's
entirely up to you how you want to see it. Like I said up front, you
can just see it as a straightforward monster flick, but I think if you
read deeper into the parallels with current Korean society, you'll get a
whole lot more out of this.